Skijoring

One day early in my arrival to Alaska, Megan took me out on the 4-wheeler to show me the trails where we would run dogs. I was hoping to get a sense of the trails so I wouldn’t get lost. It is difficult to turn dog teams around without a trail that makes a loop because their harnesses get tangled. When we were out, we ran into a woman who was skijoring. She asked if we like to ski, and pretty soon she had connected us with a friend of hers to teach us more about it. I got to know Bridget and Stan, and started skijoring with their dogs Harley and Frieda.

If you like skiing, speed, and dogs this is your sport. I’d heard about skijoring for years, but Alaska made it all real. Whenever I had a chance to get away from chores, I would go skijoring. I was able to do some races too, and even made the front of the sports page of the Fairbanks Newspaper with a photo from one of the races

Cutting up 1000 lbs of Animal

Yesterday Megan and I cut up 1000 lbs of meat. There was beef, tripe, turkey and chicken skins, and fish. We have an old meat cutter from the 1950s that we use. It took us about 7 1/2 hours nonstop to get it all done. We were cutting the meat into small finger-like pieces, that will be used to feed the dogs when Ken is running the Iditarod. There are checkpoints along the Iditarod, where Ken's drop bags will be sent. Then, along the way he will pick up the bags which will have the meat for the dogs, food for himself, clothes and other things he needs replenished during the race. We took advantage of having whole fish around to take a picture for our friend Austin. It was his birthday, and since he is in New Zealand the note makes sense......

Things we’ve learned in Alaska…..some useful, some absurd

1. using a chainsaw and hauling our own wood
2. learning how to stay warm on a 4 wheeler when out colleting wood in -50 degree weather.
3. stuffing pills down dogs throats
4. driving a huge, manual, diesel truck with no heat to haul water from Fairbanks to our house
5. using a skip, jump, slide technique to get down the stairs of our cabin in icy conditions
6. learning to have the strength to drag through the snow and trees behind a 10-dog team hanging onto the sled through huge snow drifts….because if you let go you could lose the team and dogs could get injured
7. splitting wood and starting fires to heat our cabin….
8. Carrying our house dogs down the loft stairs in the morning, because otherwise they just jump…..retired sled dogs aren’t quite like normal pet dogs
9. Learning to pass off frost bite as “a trip to Florida”
10. Finding the usefulness of allergy medicine….so I can still kiss dogs even though when I arrived here I found out that I was allergic
11. Starting the generator, filling diesel tanks, lighting the oil heater….and other odd things to keep up with living “off the grid”
12. Being appreciative of living in a dry cabin, so when you have to go outside to pee in the middle of the night you see northern lights
13. Getting really excited to talk to strangers when we go into town, because dogs are only so chatty

Arizona and Alaska

Alaska is about as far from Arizona as you can get and still be in the United States. Not only is it physically far away, the temperature, people, landscape, and hours of sunlight are at opposite extremes. Since leaving Arizona at the beginning of November, I’ve had a hard time bringing the border and my experiences there to my life amidst the snow and dark here in Alaska.

I was brought back to the border today. I got news that there was a story published in the LA Times about a friend of mine, Luis Luna (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-deport-luis-20120108,0,1526985,full.story). I met Luis when I was volunteering with No More Deaths at a migrant shelter in Nogales, Mexico. Every time I would go down to volunteer in Nogales we would hang out. When friends of mine, Heidi and Alex, were visiting from Minnesota we went to watch Luis play in a basketball tournament (see photo). There are lawyers working on a case to bring Luis back to the United States, as well as senators working on his behalf. Still, the article struck me. Struck me for the audacity of our immigration policies, but perhaps most for the struggle of a friend as I run dogs through the wilderness of Alaska. Scooping dog poop in the morning, or running dogs under the dark skies, I wonder how these two worlds, the southern border with it’s desert and immigration struggle, might come together with the northern border with it’s dark sky and open wilderness.

A run with Shuai

I’m thinking about going into tourism. Recreational dog mushing. Not really, but I got a taste of it the other day, when I took Shuai out for a run. Shuai was visiting Alaska during his winter break from NYU. Born and raised in China, this was Shuai’s first visit to Alaska. He was WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) at one of our neighbors house, and asked if we would take him for a ride. It was fun to take someone out after a couple of months of working here. Having someone to teach meant I was forced to think about all that I knew and figure out what was important to communicate. I realized that I have learned a lot in these last months, and it was fun to share that knowledge with someone else. The dogs liked him, and we went out when there was still sunlight and we could take pictures. Here are some of the photos: